How to Approach Writing Headlines & Intros

You’ve got your pitch – whether the Editorial team assigned it to you or your approved pitch - now what?

There are a few approaches you might take to writing headlines and introductions. Try different methods and see what works best for you. FANDOM editors are also a great resource as sometimes just talking through your article can help brainstorm interesting angles for your headline or helping to focus your first paragraph.

Contents

Write them first

Some writers find that writing your headline first before diving into the rest of the article helps you boil your idea down to its simplest form. The headline is what you’re promising your reader, where you set their expectations, and what the rest of your content is going to have to live up to, so having that nailed down first serves as a constant reminder of the question you’re answering in the body of your piece.

Likewise, your opening paragraph sets up what your reader will expect to read in the rest of the piece, so you can use it to set your own expectations. As you continue to write the body of your article, you can keep referring to the paragraph to make sure you’re not veering too far astray from what it promises.

Write them last

Some writers suggest that waiting until you’ve completed writing your article is the best time to write your headline and introduction. This means that you know what direction your article went in and what came of your core idea. Sometimes, writing doesn’t go as planned, so the angle you begin with might skew a little by the end. You can craft a headline and your opening paragraph around what you’ve already written now that you have an understanding of where it ended up.

Make it your top priority

Whether you write them first or after you’ve finished writing, your headline and introduction should be your top priority. Some experts suggest that writers should spend half as much time on the headline as you did on writing the entire article. We don’t expect you to go that far, but as you practice the art of crafting a perfect headline and opening paragraph, spending a little extra time on each of these will always be worth the effort.